Ah yes, the previous poster gave good advice, try grounding against the cylinder.

Pull off the recoil cover and check out the ingnition coil. More specifically the wires running from the coil to the switch. Sometimes they will get damaged and ground themselves to the case making no spark. Look for rubbing and exposed wires. Also, you can remove the black wire from the coil and try the same spark procedure you already tried, if it sparks with the wire disconnected, you've got a bad spot in the wire somewhere. If wires look good and still no spark, you might want to regap the coil to the flywheel. If none of this results in spark. You might have a bad coil.

provide a little more info please. ie, was the saw running fine and now won't? Did you acquire it already broke?
Have you tried a different spark plug? (edit, sorry, I missed the part of you trying 2 plugs)

As already stated, you may not have a good enough ground for it to spark. Try touching the base of the plug on the cylinder somewhere. (be careful if you have a lot of unburned fuel around the saw that you don't make fire...)

If you still don't have spark, make sure that the metal clip inside that spark plug boot is there. And also trace the wire from the switch to make sure it hasn't fallen off and shorted out the ignition.

110 isn't great compression, but should certainly run. I'd check to make sure the muffler isn't all clogged up, paying close attention to the spark screen. If you've got weak spark, it might not fire either.

Here is the way I start to isolate problems
check for spark (which you have done already)
choke it and pull about 5-10 times if it hasn't tried to hit I pull the plug and see if it is soaked in gas if the plug is dry it is a clogged carb or some other fuel supply issue bad line filter etc.
If the plug is wet then I usually change plugs I have had quite a few plugs fail under compression
depending on the results of these steps determines where I go next.

The prior owner had the wrong plug in this saw. Some knucklehead had the gap set at about .040 vs. ,020

The right plug fires with a white spark!

Now since you folks were so helpful on problem#1, here is problem #2.

There seems to be a little damage at the far end of the bar.

I don't know if this can be serviced or not. The far end is opened a little more than it should be. The tiny sprocket won't move. I'm guessing that there are ball bearings that the sprocket rides on, and as best I can tell, one of them is a little out of place.

Is the bar tip serviceable and can you replace the tiny sprocket, and re-rivet it?

Now to the other question. If your bar has a replaceable tip it may be worth changing out the tip. The replaceable tip is not just the sprocket but about the 5" long nose of the bar that contains the sprocket.

Now regarding bars, There are three issues to keep in mind. One is the pitch of the chain (spacing of the drive links) The gauge (width of the groove in the bar) and then of course the length of the bar will determine how many dl (drive links) you need on the chain. ie, the length of the chain.

The saw clutch will have a sprocket with a certain pitch set up. You can run a different length bar and gauge of chain as long as the pitch is the same. If you want to run a different pitch, it will require you to replace the sprocket with one of the desired pitch.

So, the saw, bar and chain must all be set up correctly (match everything)

If the bar is messed up, just replace it. they can be had inexpensively. (or for a lot, depending on what you want)

The MS290 can have either a .325 or 3/8" chain on it. It most likely has the .325 which is the standard size for the saw. The bar should be stamped with the pitch, .325 or 3/8 and the bar grove width, .050, .058 or .064. If the bar has a replaceable tip you will need those numbers to get the right one. You will also need them if the bar needs to be replaced.

[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]

Sprintcar;4194646 said:

Still 40% better that any other thread on this joint.

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Blazin;4294129 said:

The suspense is devastating on the cjcocn show, you get sucked in watching every episode....but nothing happens. :msp_mad:

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cjcocn;4309510 said:

not yet, but i'm actually pretty good at the use of stalling tactics .... i can hold on for a while longer